Underground Thermal Energy Networks Are Becoming Crucial To the US's Energy Future (technologyreview.com) 35
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Thirteen US states are now implementing underground thermal energy networks to reduce buildings' carbon emissions as part of a nationwide push to adopt cleaner energy sources. Thermal energy networks use pipe loops that connect multiple buildings and provide heating and cooling through water-source heat pumps. Geothermal heat is commonly used in these networks, but it is also possible to bring in waste heat from other buildings through the sewer system. When installed, these networks can provide efficient, fossil fuel-free heating and cooling to commercial and residential buildings. Thanks to legislative backing and widespread support from utility companies and labor unions they're likely to become an increasingly significant part of the future energy mix in the US.
"Heat is the largest source of waste energy and it's an untapped resource," says Zeyneb Magavi, co-executive director at clean energy nonprofit HEET (Home Energy Efficiency Team). "Once we have a thermal energy network, we can tap into that resource by moving it to where we need it." While the projects are still at the planning and regulatory stage in most of the 13 states, construction is already underway in some. [...] The advantages of thermal energy networks extend beyond reducing carbon emissions. Scaling them up from a few buildings to a community or utility level can also help make the grid more resilient and efficient. Magavi says every time a "loop" of thermal energy network is added to the grid, its ability to predict and manage power flow becomes more accurate. This interconnectedness helps the system become more resilient in high-stress situations.
"Heat is the largest source of waste energy and it's an untapped resource," says Zeyneb Magavi, co-executive director at clean energy nonprofit HEET (Home Energy Efficiency Team). "Once we have a thermal energy network, we can tap into that resource by moving it to where we need it." While the projects are still at the planning and regulatory stage in most of the 13 states, construction is already underway in some. [...] The advantages of thermal energy networks extend beyond reducing carbon emissions. Scaling them up from a few buildings to a community or utility level can also help make the grid more resilient and efficient. Magavi says every time a "loop" of thermal energy network is added to the grid, its ability to predict and manage power flow becomes more accurate. This interconnectedness helps the system become more resilient in high-stress situations.
Re: Thatll be really useful (Score:3)
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After three quarters of the US has converted to desert because of global warming. Wheee my building can be even warmer.
Doesn't work that way. Physics tells us that evaporation in creases with increasing temperatures, which increases the amount of water in the atmosphere.
So while some portions might become desertified by way of shifting weather patterns, overall, rainfall will increase.
I've always found it weird... (Score:3)
... that the US doesn't use such a thing. You have tons of waste heat, but you just dump it into rivers or cooling towers. Seems crazy.
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There is plenty of such stuff in evidence up above the arctic circle. Excess heat goes in pipes and is sent around town.
In Longyearbyen, where there is permafrost, the pipes are all above ground, so it can be seen.
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There is plenty of such stuff in evidence up above the arctic circle. Excess heat goes in pipes and is sent around town.
In Longyearbyen, where there is permafrost, the pipes are all above ground, so it can be seen.
Maybe US is not Socialist and so don't do Socialist things like that?
Thermodynamics is as fascist as it comes. You should love it.
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I'm guessing it would be cost prohibitive to go and try to retrofit all existing buildings and convert all the mechanics inside to use this geothermal loop...?
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I dunno how much it costs to retrofit a building itself. But the way (at least around here) that they lay the plumbing out to buildings is really efficient. They use a vehicle that has a trencher on the front, then on the back a spool that reels a collapsible insulated pipe into the gap, and then closes up the trench behind it.
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I'm guessing it would be cost prohibitive to go and try to retrofit all existing buildings and convert all the mechanics inside to use this geothermal loop...?
As mentioned in another post, district heating is common in Finland and other Nordic countries -- we obviously care more about heating (as well as insulation and heat recovery) in these cold latitudes. But it hasn't always been the default option for new buildings. My childhood home had an oil furnace, and some time in the 2000s the house was connected to district heating. I don't know the actual costs, but my parents are regular middle class folk and it didn't look like a huge operation had taken place. O
Re:I've always found it weird... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it costs money to retrofit existing services with new services. On top of which, where these things are to be built is already built up so adding this will involve tearing out large portions of existing structures which goes back to point 1.
It's easy to say, why don't you do this? until you start looking into the reason why it's not being done. It's like saying why do Americans run their electrical wires on poles rather than putting them underground? When your cities and towns haven't been bombed to ruins and you need to rebuild from scratch you have the time and conditions to do things differently.
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Because it costs money to retrofit existing services with new services. On top of which, where these things are to be built is already built up so adding this will involve tearing out large portions of existing structures which goes back to point 1.
It's easy to say, why don't you do this? until you start looking into the reason why it's not being done. It's like saying why do Americans run their electrical wires on poles rather than putting them underground? When your cities and towns haven't been bombed to ruins and you need to rebuild from scratch you have the time and conditions to do things differently.
Insightful and informative. The idea of The USA converting to waste heat use en masse requires complete disruption, and savings will probably be eliminated by that disruption.
Eventually it will be necessary to utilize waste heat as much as possible. AGW is not confined to greenhouse gases. https://environmentalsystemsre... [springeropen.com]
Side note: Underground power lines ain't all that. They are just as susceptible to lightning strikes (lightning usually goes from ground to sky) and if they do get broken, it's a wh
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It's like saying why do Americans run their electrical wires on poles rather than putting them underground? When your cities and towns haven't been bombed to ruins and you need to rebuild from scratch you have the time and conditions to do things differently.
Out here in California where we've had people killed by PGE skipping maintenance for 99 years the answer is that PGE is running off with the profits, paying dividends and doing stock buybacks instead of performing maintenance and doing upgrades.
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LOL...well, then there are other reasons why, like in New Orleans, for the same reason we don't bury our dead underground here....
We're below sea
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You literally bury cold water pipes. Explain why hot is an exception.
Pipes are waterproof. That's kind of the whole point of them. If it's not waterproof, it's not a pipe.
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Not everything requires "conversion". At least do it with new construction and retrofits. At least make the service available.
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It's socialist. And I don't want any of those gay pipes running under my property. And it invites demons in. That are woke. Yes, gay woke socialist demons in it. That's why.
Dun-nun-da-da! You win! Play American bingo! Every Thursday.
Re:I've always found it weird... (Score:4, Informative)
District heating systems are not uncommon in US cities. The problem with expanding them or building more is mostly cost; the incremental benefit of a central thermal system is less than that of just investing in expanding/upgrading an existing energy distribution system like electricity or natural gas which is already in place serving nearly every building. The notable exception is when you have a blank slate type of project, e.g. an entire city block worth of new apartment towers that can be designed from the start to use a centralized boiler plant for heating and hot water.
Powerplants tend to be located away from population centers, and wires are a lot cheaper, less lossy, and easier to maintain than pipes and pumps. It only seems crazy if you view civil planning through the lens of someone who's only experience with it is playing Sim City.
However, the calculus might be changing in light of climate change and the transition to renewable energy. Also in the examples given, we're not really talking about using waste heat from powerplants but community-level systems similar to the way apartment complexes use a central plant. Worth a try I guess?
=Smidge=
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It is not expensive at all to bring hot water from out of town to in-town. We do it extensively here. You do it all the time with cold water.
"Boiler plants" are the exact opposite of the point. The point is to use waste heat, not make more heat.
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It is absolutely - absurdly - expensive to install it now that the town exists. Most of the water mains you're talking about were installed decades ago before the town actually existed, or was extremely small. Now you're talking about two, possibly three* times as many pipes and having to install that under existing roads that are now cross-crossed with decades of other infrastructure and all the disruptions to local traffic that would entail.
A local town is trying to install a sewer system and treatment pl
Yum (Score:3)
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Re:Heat networks are inefficient (Score:4, Interesting)
Heat transfer is only useful over short distances in niche cases. Also heat capture often makes the process less efficient. In electrical power generation you’re actually better off just generating power and installing heat pumps.
In a typical plant used to generate that electricity (nuclear, coal, natural gas, whatever it is generating the heating) there is typically a lot of wasted heat put into seawater, cooling towers, etc.... The secret is to use THAT heat to pvodie dual output from the plant. It's called Cogeneration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In Finland, there is about 10,000 miles of district heating pipes in population centres. In such a sparsely populated country it is still considered a very viable and cost-effective solution.
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Heat can be stored seasonally for district heating. This is one of very few reasonably cheap ways to make power demand flexible on a monthly basis. Heat pumps on their own typically need to run at the time that heating is required, no matter how expensive electricity is. In Denmark, more than half of all dwellings are heated with district heating. It is not a niche technology.
The additional advantage is that it is quicker to change heat source. Industrial heat, waste incinerators, biomass, solar, and heat p
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Heat transfer is only useful over short distances in niche cases.
I concur. "Crucial" seems a bit of an overstatement. This might be important in dense environments such as cities. In a town as spread out as Framingham (referenced in TFA), you'd need really well insulated pipes to make this work well in most of the town. I really wonder if it's cost-effective rather than just deploying more conventional air or ground heat pump systems at each building.
What I find interesting is MIT has, or had, a campus-wide heating system. Steam was generated in a steam plant on Vassar s
And you think computer networks are hard to manage (Score:3)
Re: And you think computer networks are hard to ma (Score:2)
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There is 0, fuck all we can do to actually stop producing CO2 but we can reduce it if we switch to nuclear for *energy* production, to heat homes, to move electrical trains, to power factories.
Not going to disagree about nuclear. What I will observe is this is a way to make most forms of power generation more efficient. Nuclear and coal plants have those huge cooling towers. They represent energy being wasted. It might be worthwhile to capture that heat and use it to heat buildings rather than release it into the air. OTOH, I wouldn't be surprised if it's just not cost effective, just like natural gas gets flared because it's just not worth it to capture and transport.
I call that green washed conspiracy theory .. (Score:2)
.. in reality sucking on Old Faithful's heat is a covert operation to keep the pressure inside the caldera down, because if it would go off,
well to put it that way, Russia and China would have had one adversary less, but a million of other problems to face.
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oh that is a good one. Do you mind if I drop that off in some of the tin foil hat types I troll to see what happens?